About Todd O’Brien

Dr. O’Brien graduated from Bates College with a BS in biology in 1986. He then attended the Scholl College of Podiatric Medicine and graduated summa cum laude with a DPM degree in 1990. After completing a podiatric surgical residency at VAMC Palo Alto and Stanford, Dr. O’Brien was employed at Sgarlato Labs, a biomedical start-up then based in San Jose, CA. He served in a variety roles there including product developer, project manager, technical writer and sales presenter. After three years at Sgarlato Labs, he returned to the full-time practice of podiatry until founding O’Brien Medical, LLC in 1999. He has since divided his time between running a podiatry practice and developing medical products. He has successfully licensed six surgical products and holds four issued patents.
Writing credits include several articles in peer-reviewed medical journals, a chapter in a surgical text and a book on entrepreneurship for inventors. He is a past-president of the medical staff at Penobscot Valley Hospital as well as the Maine Podiatric Medical Association. He is a graduate of the 2012 class of the Top Gun entrepreneurship acceleration program administered by the Maine Center for Entrepreneurial Development.

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About the Authors

Getting to the “next level” can be challenging for companies – even those with great ideas. That’s where the Maine Center for Enterprise Development’s Top Gun program comes in. Each year, a Top Gun “class” of entrepreneurs works with experienced mentors in an intensive masters course on business and innovation. The latest class has representatives from 20 companies from the Portland and Bangor regions, and program officials hope to expand it in coming years.

Thirteen of those companies have agreed to blog about their challenges as entrepreneurs and what they’re learning from the Top Gun program for the Bangor Daily News. Our hope is what they’re learning can be shared with other small business leaders throughout Maine.